Wednesday, September 26, 2012

COMPASSION
IN A SEA OF VIOLENCE

Sanity in the midst
of madness

By: Gulamhusein
A.Abba

Being a peace loving
Muslim, a Gandhian and a staunch believer in non-violence, I was, and continue
to be, outraged, saddened and very disturbed by the senseless and horrific
violence by misguided Muslims over a silly, amateurish, vulgar and baseless
movie.

Innocent men were killed,
including US Ambassador Chris Stevens
and three others. Property of those that had nothing to do with the offending video
was torched and destroyed. Relations between countries were savaged.

It was gratifying to
note that many political and religious leaders, including Muslims, denounced
both, the violence and the video. No less than the US President Barack Obama
and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined the condemnation and brave
Muslims in Benghazi itself stood on streets with signs stating that the
perpetrators of the violence did not represent Libyans or Muslims, much less
Islam.

At the local level, the
Association of Religious communities, representing almost all the faiths in
Danbury, spoke out loud and clear through a sagaciously worded full page
advertisement in the Saturday issue of the News Times.

Without in any way
justifying or excusing the violence that has been let lose all over the globe
by misguided Muslims, there is a need to understand that though the video
triggered the violence, it is not the underlying cause for it.

Muslims feel, not
without reason, that Muslims and Islam itself are being targeted by Western
nations. Minarets have been banned by the Swiss government.. The wearing of a
head scarf has been banned by France and Belgium. In the US itself various
police departments have profiled and “mapped” Muslims, planting informants in
mosques. Worse, the building of mosques is being opposed, even those cleared by
respective town/city councils, and existing mosques and sites of proposed ones
have been vandalized.

Newspapers and TV
screens are full of images of violent Muslims, with the mandatory sound bite of
AllahoAkbarincluded, giving the
impression that millions of Muslims across the world had taken to the streets. Important
figures continue to level defamatory and baseless accusations against Prophet
Mohammed. It is even alleged that terrorism is ingrained in Muslims and is in
fact a part of Islam itself!

In an article in a recent
issue of Newsweek, the violent protests against the insult to ProphetMohamed were described as ‘intolerance’ and
the article proceeded to claim that ‘such
intolerance has crossed borders and become the defining characteristic of
Islam’. (Emphasis added).

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s
host of Morning Joe publicly commented
that Muslims hate the US because of the religion itself. He went on to state: "If
you gave every street vendor, from street vendor to prime minister in that
region, a chance to throw a rock at the U.S. Embassy, they would."

After a week of the
violent protests, the French magazineCharlie Hebdo decided to pour oil on the fire
by publishing offensive cartoons of the Prophet.

All this needs to be
countered. But violence is not the answer. By resorting to it the perpetrators
are playing into the hands of detractors of Islam and of those who hate Muslims.
There are better and more effective ways of countering such propaganda, and
that is by presenting the truth.

The truth is, as pointed
out byDean Obeidallah (a
former attorney and now a frequent commentator on various TV networks) in a
recent excellent commentary to CNN. “In Indonesia, a nation of over 200
million, (only) several hundred people took part in protests …. In Egypt, a
nation of over 80 million, about 2,000 people protested on Friday… In Lebanon,
no protests occurred until Monday. Why? Because the pope had been visiting the
country, and the leader of Hezbollah, which the U.S. has labeled as a terrorist
group, didn't want to do anything to interfere with the pope's historic
three-day visit.”

Just as pastors like Terry Jones and Bill Keller, commentators like Joe
Scarborough, Muslim hating writers like Robert Spencer, David Horowitz and
Pamela Geller,
and mobs that demonstrate against a mosque being built do not represent either
America or Christianity, so do the miniscule proportion of Muslims that indulge
in saber rattling do not represent Muslims, much less Islam.

As stated earlier, the best and most
effective way of countering falsehoods is by presenting the truth. So what is
the truth about Islam and Prophet Mohammed?

That will take a book to explain.
For now, as a former Catholic nun, a world-renowned author on world religions
and a champion for peace worldwide, Karen Armstrong's video about Islam and the
Prophet Muhammadand his compassion is
great to view and share. Click here:http://youtu.be/lahXSUkuaIA

In conclusion, acts are always
better than words. A notable example is being set by Celebrate Mercy. They have
put together a mercy mail campaign to ask Muslims to send condolence letters to
the family of Ambassador Chris Stevens as a perfect way to counter the
anti-Islamic video with a good deed.

In just 45 minutes they got 3,000
letters! In the first 1,638 letters that were sent, I am happy to say that the
largest percentage (31.26) were from America. At last check, more than 5,000
letters had been sent.

About Me

Gulamhusein A. Abba is an 88-year-old writer with more than 60 years in journalism. He is originally from Bombay (now Mumbai), where his writings have been published in almost all the important news media, in English, Urdu, Gujarati and Marathi, and where he functioned in various capacities, including reporter, news and political analyst, columnist, editor and publisher.
He was also a trade unionist,
peace and justice activist and took part in political activities.
As a trade unionist he organized the maritime petty officers and the film studio workers.
He founded and was the Chairman of the Rule of Law Committee and Taxi Users' Association
In the US, he is the chairman of Justice for Palestinians Committee, and, The Danbury Committee for World Peace.
In May of 2011, The Danbury Bar Association conferred on him the prestigious Honorary AMERICAN DREAM AWARD.